The Invisible Man: A Grotesque Romance
“I sprang to my feet, whipped a chair off the counter, and sent it
whirling at the fool who had shouted, turned, came into another round a
corner, sent him spinning, and rushed up the stairs. He kept his
footing, gave a view hallo, and came up the staircase hot after me. Up
the staircase were piled a multitude of those bright-coloured pot
things—what are they?”
“Art pots,” suggested Kemp.
“That’s it! Art pots. Well, I turned at the top step and swung round,
plucked one out of a pile and smashed it on his silly head as he came
at me. The whole pile of pots went headlong, and I heard shouting and
footsteps running from all parts. I made a mad rush for the refreshment
place, and there was a man in white like a man cook, who took up the
chase. I made one last desperate turn and found myself among lamps and
ironmongery. I went behind the counter of this, and waited for my cook,
and as he bolted in at the head of the chase, I doubled him up with a
lamp. Down he went, and I crouched down behind the counter and began
whipping off my clothes as fast as I could. Coat, jacket, trousers,
shoes were all right, but a lambswool vest fits a man like a skin. I
heard more men coming, my cook was lying quiet on the other side of the
counter, stunned or scared speechless, and I had to make another dash
for it, like a rabbit hunted out of a wood-pile.
“‘This way, policeman!’ I heard someone shouting. I found myself in my
bedstead storeroom again, and at the end of a wilderness of wardrobes.
I rushed among them, went flat, got rid of my vest after infinite
wriggling, and stood a free man again, panting and scared, as the
policeman and three of the shopmen came round the corner. They made a
rush for the vest and pants, and collared the trousers. ‘He’s dropping
his plunder,’ said one of the young men. ‘He _must_ be somewhere here.’
“But they did not find me all the same.
“I stood watching them hunt for me for a time, and cursing my ill-luck
in losing the clothes. Then I went into the refreshment-room, drank a
little milk I found there, and sat down by the fire to consider my
position.
“In a little while two assistants came in and began to talk over the
business very excitedly and like the fools they were. I heard a
magnified account of my depredations, and other speculations as to my
whereabouts. Then I fell to scheming again. The insurmountable
difficulty of the place, especially now it was alarmed, was to get any
plunder out of it. I went down into the warehouse to see if there was
any chance of packing and addressing a parcel, but I could not
understand the system of checking. About eleven o’clock, the snow
having thawed as it fell, and the day being finer and a little warmer
than the previous one, I decided that the Emporium was hopeless, and
went out again, exasperated at my want of success, with only the
vaguest plans of action in my mind.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
IN DRURY LANE
“But you begin now to realise,” said the Invisible Man, “the full
disadvantage of my condition. I had no shelter—no covering—to get
clothing was to forego all my advantage, to make myself a strange and
terrible thing. I was fasting; for to eat, to fill myself with
unassimilated matter, would be to become grotesquely visible again.”
“I never thought of that,” said Kemp.
“Nor had I. And the snow had warned me of other dangers. I could not go
abroad in snow—it would settle on me and expose me. Rain, too, would
make me a watery outline, a glistening surface of a man—a bubble. And
fog—I should be like a fainter bubble in a fog, a surface, a greasy
glimmer of humanity. Moreover, as I went abroad—in the London air—I
gathered dirt about my ankles, floating smuts and dust upon my skin. I
did not know how long it would be before I should become visible from
that cause also. But I saw clearly it could not be for long.
“Not in London at any rate.
“I went into the slums towards Great Portland Street, and found myself
at the end of the street in which I had lodged. I did not go that way,
because of the crowd halfway down it opposite to the still smoking
ruins of the house I had fired. My most immediate problem was to get
clothing. What to do with my face puzzled me. Then I saw in one of
those little miscellaneous shops—news, sweets, toys, stationery,
belated Christmas tomfoolery, and so forth—an array of masks and noses.
I realised that problem was solved. In a flash I saw my course. I
turned about, no longer aimless, and went—circuitously in order to
avoid the busy ways, towards the back streets north of the Strand; for
I remembered, though not very distinctly where, that some theatrical
costumiers had shops in that district.
“The day was cold, with a nipping wind down the northward running
streets. I walked fast to avoid being overtaken. Every crossing was a
danger, every passenger a thing to watch alertly. One man as I was
about to pass him at the top of Bedford Street, turned upon me abruptly
and came into me, sending me into the road and almost under the wheel
of a passing hansom. The verdict of the cab-rank was that he had had
some sort of stroke. I was so unnerved by this encounter that I went
into Covent Garden Market and sat down for some time in a quiet corner
by a stall of violets, panting and trembling. I found I had caught a
fresh cold, and had to turn out after a time lest my sneezes should
attract attention.
“At last I reached the object of my quest, a dirty, fly-blown little
shop in a by-way near Drury Lane, with a window full of tinsel robes,
sham jewels, wigs, slippers, dominoes and theatrical photographs. The
shop was old-fashioned and low and dark, and the house rose above it
for four storeys, dark and dismal. I peered through the window and,
seeing no one within, entered. The opening of the door set a clanking
bell ringing. I left it open, and walked round a bare costume stand,
into a corner behind a cheval glass. For a minute or so no one came.
Then I heard heavy feet striding across a room, and a man appeared down
the shop.
“My plans were now perfectly definite. I proposed to make my way into
the house, secrete myself upstairs, watch my opportunity, and when
everything was quiet, rummage out a wig, mask, spectacles, and costume,
and go into the world, perhaps a grotesque but still a credible figure.
And incidentally of course I could rob the house of any available
money.
“The man who had just entered the shop was a short, slight, hunched,
beetle-browed man, with long arms and very short bandy legs. Apparently
I had interrupted a meal. He stared about the shop with an expression
of expectation. This gave way to surprise, and then to anger, as he saw
the shop empty. ‘Damn the boys!’ he said. He went to stare up and down
the street. He came in again in a minute, kicked the door to with his
foot spitefully, and went muttering back to the house door.
“I came forward to follow him, and at the noise of my movement he
stopped dead. I did so too, startled by his quickness of ear. He
slammed the house door in my face.
“I stood hesitating. Suddenly I heard his quick footsteps returning,
and the door reopened. He stood looking about the shop like one who was
still not satisfied. Then, murmuring to himself, he examined the back
of the counter and peered behind some fixtures. Then he stood doubtful.
He had left the house door open and I slipped into the inner room.
“It was a queer little room, poorly furnished and with a number of big
masks in the corner. On the table was his belated breakfast, and it was
a confoundedly exasperating thing for me, Kemp, to have to sniff his
coffee and stand watching while he came in and resumed his meal. And
his table manners were irritating. Three doors opened into the little
room, one going upstairs and one down, but they were all shut. I could
not get out of the room while he was there; I could scarcely move
because of his alertness, and there was a draught down my back. Twice I
strangled a sneeze just in time.
“The spectacular quality of my sensations was curious and novel, but
for all that I was heartily tired and angry long before he had done his
eating. But at last he made an end and putting his beggarly crockery on
the black tin tray upon which he had had his teapot, and gathering all
the crumbs up on the mustard stained cloth, he took the whole lot of
things after him. His burden prevented his shutting the door behind
him—as he would have done; I never saw such a man for shutting
doors—and I followed him into a very dirty underground kitchen and
scullery. I had the pleasure of seeing him begin to wash up, and then,
finding no good in keeping down there, and the brick floor being cold
on my feet, I returned upstairs and sat in his chair by the fire. It
was burning low, and scarcely thinking, I put on a little coal. The
noise of this brought him up at once, and he stood aglare. He peered
about the room and was within an ace of touching me. Even after that
examination, he scarcely seemed satisfied. He stopped in the doorway
and took a final inspection before he went down.
“I waited in the little parlour for an age, and at last he came up and
opened the upstairs door. I just managed to get by him.
“On the staircase he stopped suddenly, so that I very nearly blundered
into him. He stood looking back right into my face and listening. ‘I
could have sworn,’ he said. His long hairy hand pulled at his lower
lip. His eye went up and down the staircase. Then he grunted and went
on up again.
“His hand was on the handle of a door, and then he stopped again with
the same puzzled anger on his face. He was becoming aware of the faint
sounds of my movements about him. The man must have had diabolically
acute hearing. He suddenly flashed into rage. ‘If there’s anyone in
this house—’ he cried with an oath, and left the threat unfinished. He
put his hand in his pocket, failed to find what he wanted, and rushing
past me went blundering noisily and pugnaciously downstairs. But I did
not follow him. I sat on the head of the staircase until his return.
“Presently he came up again, still muttering. He opened the door of the
room, and before I could enter, slammed it in my face.
“I resolved to explore the house, and spent some time in doing so as
noiselessly as possible. The house was very old and tumble-down, damp
so that the paper in the attics was peeling from the walls, and rat
infested. Some of the door handles were stiff and I was afraid to turn
them. Several rooms I did inspect were unfurnished, and others were
littered with theatrical lumber, bought second-hand, I judged, from its
appearance. In one room next to his I found a lot of old clothes. I
began routing among these, and in my eagerness forgot again the evident
sharpness of his ears. I heard a stealthy footstep and, looking up just
in time, saw him peering in at the tumbled heap and holding an
old-fashioned revolver in his hand. I stood perfectly still while he
stared about open-mouthed and suspicious. ‘It must have been her,’ he
said slowly. ‘Damn her!’
“He shut the door quietly, and immediately I heard the key turn in the
lock. Then his footsteps retreated. I realised abruptly that I was
locked in. For a minute I did not know what to do. I walked from door
to window and back, and stood perplexed. A gust of anger came upon me.
But I decided to inspect the clothes before I did anything further, and
my first attempt brought down a pile from an upper shelf. This brought
him back, more sinister than ever. That time he actually touched me,
jumped back with amazement and stood astonished in the middle of the
room.
“Presently he calmed a little. ‘Rats,’ he said in an undertone, fingers
on lips. He was evidently a little scared. I edged quietly out of the